The Dark is Rising
by Hawki
Summary: Oneshot: A shadow is spreading across Creation, heralding the end of time itself. But where did the darkness come from? Time? The world of Mars? Or did it come from the Doctor himself?


**The Dark is Rising**

_It is done. It is over. Nothing can change it._

_Life and death, brotherhood and betrayal, love and loss, courage, sacrifice and the death of a dream...all nothing to the power of a Time Lord. As Bowie Base One itself became nothing, reduced to its component atoms in the light of a thousand suns, something happened that should not have happened. The might of time itself was defied. _

_Mars...fifty million miles away from Earth, yet for the speed of a TARDIS, the two might as well have been the same planet. And as _it _begins, whatever difference exists has become academic. Twilight has fallen over Creation and soon the darkness will begin._

* * *

Adelaide Brooke is...

Well, it's hard for her to say how she feels. On one hand, this...man (assuming he is one) saved her life along with the lives of two of her friends. It is the nature of all life to fight against death, however inevitable it might be and not even encountering a water-based virus on Mars will change that. And wherever she is, it's snowing. Just like the Doctor, she likes snow, especially how rare it is nowadays.

To say the least, she's greatful.

On the other hand, she's concerned. She feels, she _knows _that she was meant to die on a world beyond Earth. Of course she only has her saviour's word to go by, that she begins a journey beyond even Mars but that was before the red planet began to live up to its namesake. This man, this doctor carries starlight in his eyes. Not unlike the dalek she faced all those years ago, though this is knowledge that comes from seeking out knowledge for the sake of it, not knowledge for the sake of power. He _knew _she was meant to die like everyone else, he _knew _what would happen if he saved her...

...and at the risk of changing human history, he did so. In one moment both wonderous and terrifying, he displayed the power akin to a god. A power that, as Adelaide knows, no-one should have the right to weild.

"Tough," is all the Doctor says in regards to that point.

Adelaide steps back. The mask has dropped and she can see the darkness.

* * *

_The dark is generous._

_The dark's first gift is concealment. It hides our true faces, our deepest desires from the light. It protects us from things we dare not know and dare not reveal to those around us. It is the dark that provides us with illusion, the comforting touch of night's embrace, that allows the delusion that light will always triumph. It compels us into forgetting that the light is temporary, that day is illusion._

_But sometimes the darkness leaves us. And it is at that moment that an even more horrific darkness is revealed. A darkness as malignant as that which is beginning to spread across Creation._

_Our soul._

* * *

The Doctor is...

...well, it's hard for him to say how he feels. Confused to an extent, at least. Normally when he saves people's lives (which, given humanity's blundering nature, is many) they're greatful, not recoiling away from him in horror. But of what he can say about himself, he feels liberated. As he tells the former captain of Mars' first human colony, he's saved little people before, but never one as important as her. True, he saved two others (what were their names? They seem so insignificant now), but it's Captain Brooke that's the main accomplishment here. The only one of that lot who can change history for the better. The only one who, despite her resistance to the idea of her friends being "little people," is the only one who can possibly comprehend the greater scheme of things.

No, that's not quite right. For as the last Time Lord in existance, _he's_ the only one who can comprehend the greater scheme of creation. _He's_ the only one who can chart the course of history for the better. _He's_ the only one who understands that the end justifies the means. And as the Doctor proudly declares to the evolved ape standing before him, he understands that he's won.

Time Lord victorious.

* * *

_The dark is patient._

_It is the dark that seeds justice with cruelty. It is the dark that taints compassion with contempt. It is the dark that turns love into hatred._

_The dark is patient. It can wait for the end of eternity for its seeds to sprout. It is only a matter of time before each being gives into the darkness inside them._

_And not even a Time Lord can escape it._

* * *

Is it a man or a god that Adelaide stands before?

She does not know. She doesn't even _want _to know and it's clear that the one who saved her couldn't even give a damn. True, he's considerate enough to open the door to her house, to let her exit the gates of Hell, but this counts for little in the end.

"Is there nothing you can't do?"

"Not anymore."

And that seals it. That confirms what she fears. Walking away from the one who has clearly fallen from grace, Adelaide walks through the door. The door that seperates her from the god outside, to bar entry to Heaven. Yet nothing can keep out the dark indefinatly. Not like this at any rate. There is something that must be done. A sacrifice. A sacrifice to protect Man from the sins of he who would 'deliver' them.

Pulling the trigger of her laser pistol, Captain Adelaide Brooke makes it.

* * *

_The greatest light casts the darkest shadow._

_At times, it is light that is the true enemy. It is light that guides the way for those who walks down the trail darkness has made for them. It is the light that reveals knowledge, some of which is best laid hidden. It is the light that reveals what is hidden both inside one consumed with darkness and that around him._

_And as the most radiant being in the universe sees, the dark is everywhere._

_It is in the snow in his hair, the wind in his eyes, the earth which he treads. But this is all nothing to that which lies within him. For the darkness around him has a point of origin. The same point of origin that has spawned what was once twilight. An origin that has opened a door without knocking._

_The darkness came from him._

* * *

Sigma has shown the way. And the Doctor must follow before he becomes Omega.

Taking out his key, the Time Lord opens the gates to Heaven. A lonely angel, now fallen, he has nonetheless been granted entry. But even so, there is no fanfare. His fellow angels left this world long ago and even if they remained, would they greet the one who fell so far? The one who, in one horrific moment, spat on their sacrifice?

The Doctor doubts it. And he can't blame them.

Inside the TARDIS, the cloister bell tolls. His herald, as it were. The sound that drives him to take his craft into the heavens and seek out that which can deliver him and Creation itself. His light may have cast shadow, but light is all that can stand against the dark. And who knows, maybe it will be enough.

Because while the dark may be everywhere, while the dark can utilize light itself as an ally, it has one weakness. Because even one piece of light standing alone can hold the darkness back.

Hope's candle is kindled and both light and darkness converge.

* * *

_A/N_

_This oneshot was written before the preview of _The End of Time _clip was released, so I admit there's discrepency between this and the events depicted. Still, it seems fair to say that the Doctor might have done a 180 after the events of _The Waters of Mars_, for while he eventually heads to the Ood Sphere, it's not after a significant delay and getting beach attire. I can't imagine that "no" at the end of WoM was simply meant to be a refusal to face up to the facts._


End file.
